Dr. Mel Oluoch, Strategic Partnership Director of SAA, joined SAA since 2018 as the Regional Director and is based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He has a PhD in Horticulture from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech, USA) an MSc in Horticulture from Central Mindanao University (Philippines), and a BSc Degree in Agriculture from the University of Eastern Africa (Kenya). He has previously held R&D and leadership capacities at the World Vegetable Center, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), HarvestPlus, International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), and Wageningen Plant Research, The Netherlands. His work has focused on multidisciplinary R&D disciplines that integrates agriculture and nutrition through the development and dissemination of Agriculture technologies and best practices such as integrated crop management technologies, climate-smart agriculture practices, resilient crop varieties and nutrition sensitive technologies that impacts rural and urban communities in Africa. Currently he coordinates SAAs strategic partnerships to enhance the design and program delivery of practical and innovative agricultural extension and advisory service and capacity building systems in Africa. He also leads the resource mobilization strategy for SAA.

Hon. Prof. Ruth Oniang’o, Chair of SAA, is the founder of the African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development. She is a leader in outreach and work with smallholder farmers in Kenya, and her work with the Rural Outreach Program has supported resource-poor farmer activities. As Chair of Kenya’s Food Security and Nutrition Taskforce, she seeks to raise awareness on poverty, food security, nutrition and gender issues. In 2017, she was awarded the prestigious Africa Food Prize.

President of Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences(JIRCAS). Graduated from Faculty of Liberal Arts, University of Tokyo. After joining the Ministry of Agriculture Forestry and Fisheries of Japan in 1979, engaged in econometric analyses of global food situation at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) (1986-93)　and JIRCAS (1993-). Also, in charge of research strategy setting in JIRCAS from 2002 until 2015 when moved to Vice President. Appointed to the current position in 2021.

Dr. Rattan Lal, Distinguished University Professor of Soil Science at the Ohio State University, is the Director of CFAES Dr. Rattan Lal Carbon Management and Sequestration Center (C-MASC). He has been focusing on regenerative agriculture over his career to promote innovative soil-saving techniques. He received the 2020 World Food Prize for developing and mainstreaming a soil-centric approach to increasing food production that restores and conserves natural resources and mitigates climate change. The prior awards recognizing his incredible achievement include the Von Liebig Award (2006), the GCHERA World Agriculture Prize (2018), the Glinka World Soil Prize (2018), the Japan Prize (2019), and in India, the Norman Borlaug Award (2005), the Swaminathan Award (2009) , and the Padma Shri Award (2021). Dr. Lal also received Honorary Degrees from 9 universities of Europe, Asia, South America and USA.

Dr. Ken Giller is a Professor in the Plant Production Systems group, within the Wageningen Centre for Agroecology and Systems Analysis (WaCASA) at Wageningen University. His research has focused on smallholder farming systems in sub-Saharan Africa, and in particular problems of soil fertility and the role of nitrogen fixation in tropical legumes, with emphasis on the temporal and spatial dynamics of resources within crop/livestock farming systems and their interactions. He has led a number of initiatives such as N2Africa (Putting Nitrogen Fixation to Work for Smallholder Farmers in Africa), and is co-chair of the Thematic Network 7 on Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) of the United Nations.

Dr. Fentahun Mengistu received, his M.Sc. in Horticulture/Vegetables from the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, and his PhD from Boku University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna, Austria. He has spent more than three decades as a researcher, development expert, and leader in Ethiopian agricultural research and development. He was the Director General of the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research from 2013 to 2017. Prior to that, he was Director General of the Amhara Regional Agricultural Research Institute, and Director of the Adet Agricultural Research Center. From July 2017 to July 2018, he worked as a Senior Agronomist for Tufts University on the Agricultural Knowledge Learning Documentation and Policy (AKLDP) Project in Ethiopia, which was launched by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). As of 2018, he serves as Country Director for the SAA's Ethiopia Office.

Dr. Kofi Boa is the founder and Executive Director of the Center for No-Till Agriculture (CNTA). The Center has provided hands-on training for thousands of smallholder farmers, agriculture extension agents, and University students. Dr. Boa studied agricultural science education at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Ghana, and at the University of Nebraska in the USA. He began his professional career as a cocoa agronomist and later worked for the Crops Research Institute (CRI) of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in Ghana as an on-farm research scientist. He worked on the Ghana Grains Development Project, where he did additional no-till research and extension.

Dr. Leigh Ann Winowiecki is a Soil Systems Scientist at World Agroforestry (ICRAF) based in Nairobi, Kenya. She has over 15 years of experience working in the global tropics on key issues around land restoration, sustainable agricultural intensification and soil carbon dynamics. Over the last decade she has had a critical role in developing and implementing ICRAF’s Land Degradation Surveillance Framework (LDSF), a systematic monitoring framework for assessing soil and land health. She currently leads an IFAD-EU funded initiative on Restoration of Degraded Lands in East Africa and the Sahel which implements the Research in Development approach to scale restoration options. In 2018, she was nominated as a landscape laurel.

Dr. Nakamura received his Ph.D. (Agronomy) from the Biosphere Resource Science, Graduate School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Tsukuba. Since 2008, he has been working at JIRCAS to develop soil fertility management technologies in West Africa. He has been engaged in the development of fertilization technology, including the direct application method of African low-grade phosphate rock. He is currently the Project Leader of the “Development of soil and crop management technologies to stabilize upland farming systems of African smallholder farmers (African Upland Farming System)" project which is targeting northern Ghana and Burkina Faso.

Originally studying business and international relations in Keio University and University of Washington, Miyuki earned her MSc and Ph.D. degree in economics from the University of Tokyo. Her professional career in Africa included 10 years at the World Agroforestry Centre, where she was especially assigned to do research on the evaluation of socio-economic and environmental viability of natural resource management within smallholder systems. She joined JIRCAS in 2016, serving as Research Coordinator and Director of the Research Strategy Office, and as Director of the Information Program since 2021.

Dr. Edmundo Barrios is an Agricultural Officer at The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). He provides technical and policy- related advice on ecosystem management, soil health & biodiversity that supports agroecological transitions to sustainable food and agricultural systems. He holds a BSc in Biology from University of California at Berkeley, MSc in Ecology and Environmental Sciences from the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research (IVIC) and a PhD in Biological Sciences from the University of Dundee, UK in collaboration with ICRAF, the World Agroforestry Centre. A soil ecologist with more than 20 years of research for development experience with the CGIAR based in Latin America (CIAT-Colombia) and Africa (ICRAF-Kenya), he investigated the linkages between soil health, biodiversity and productivity in agricultural and agroforestry systems.

Dr. Tilahun Amede has a PhD in Eco-physiology from the University of Hohenheim, Germany. At Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), he develops and institutionalizes ‘Sustainable farming’ program, which ensures investments in both increasing agricultural productivity and environmental health, taking consideration of climate risks. Before joining AGRA, he served as a Principal Scientist in Systems Agronomy and a Country Representative for the International Crops Research Institute for the Semiarid Tropics (ICRISAT) (2012- 2020). He was awarded several awards; ICRISAT Partnership Award; ICRISAT Fund Raising Award; Award for 'Outstanding Contribution to Biological Sciences' given by the Society of the Advancement of Biological sciences in Feb 2011

Prof. Sani Miko joined SAA in 2009 as Country Director of SAA Nigeria. He obtained a PhD in Irrigation Agronomy in 1999 from Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) at Zaria (Nigeria). Dr. Miko began his career in the Department of Agronomy at ABU in 1988. He was involved in extension and research on cereal agronomy and water management at the Institute for Agricultural Research, Samaru. Before joining SAA, Dr. Miko was Head of the Agronomy Department and the Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture at Bayero University.

Dr. Makoto Kitanaka (Japan) was appointed as President of the SAA in 2019. He has worked for JICA for more than 30 years and served as the Director General of the Department of Rural Development. Some of his achievements are: 1) expansion of the CARD (Coalition for African Rice Development) with the aim of doubling rice production in Africa in 10 years, 2) expansion of SHEP (Smallholder Horticulture Empowerment & Promotion in Africa）and 3) launch of IFNA (Initiative for Food and Nutrition Security in Africa).